


The Space Between

by lamardeuse



Series: Getting To Know You [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-05
Updated: 2010-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:48:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series to accompany Season Two of SGA. Part Two: The Intruder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: rating refers to overall series rating. Individual parts may carry a lower rating.

After twelve nonstop days of  briefings and debriefings and poring over supply lists and resumes and losing his mind in an entirely different way than he had been doing in the Pegasus galaxy, Rodney called up a general he knew who owed him a favour, and seven hours after that he was getting off an Air Force transport at Pearson International.  

He rented a blue Buick and bought a map and drove to Markham, muttering the whole way, his palms so slick on the wheel he almost lost control of the vehicle a couple of times.  There’d been no sense in calling Jeannie because up until yesterday he didn’t know he’d have time to do this, and he still wasn’t sure if he was going to take the next exit and head back to the airport.  When he turned the corner on to her street he slowed, surprised he’d made it that far, then gripped the wheel as best he could and took a deep, steadying breath.

The last time he’d talked to her had been at Mum’s funeral three years ago.  Her pretty face had been pinched and drawn and grief-stricken, and for a moment he’d actually hated her for being capable of looking that way, of feeling that deeply.  He himself felt nothing—or next to nothing, which he supposed was worse.

_Mom always did love you best._  Christ, his life was a Smothers Brothers routine.

Jeannie lived in one of the more luxurious subdivisions, where there was a full ten feet between houses.  Most of them had double car garages and wide paved driveways that ate up half the front yard.  

When he knocked, there was no answer.  He checked his watch:  it was a quarter past six.  

A blonde head poked out of the house next door.  “Can I help you?”

Rodney blinked; he’d been steeling himself for strenuous emotional contact, so he had to readjust himself for something more superficial.  “I’m looking for Jeannie.  Jeannie Stephenson?”

The woman’s eyes flicked over him, assessing his potential threat level.  “I’m her brother,” he added, his impatience bleeding through.

“Oh.  Oh!”  The screen door banged as she darted from her house and crossed the lawn swiftly.  “You’re Rodney!”  She stuck out a hand.  “I’m Jeannie’s friend, Marg.”  She made a face that might have been sympathetic or constipated.  “She’s going to be so disappointed she missed you.”

“Have they gone out for the evening?”

“Oh, no.  They’re on vacation.  She and Gordie and the kids rented a motor home.  They left Monday for a trip out west.  See the Stampede, that kind of thing.”

Rodney shut his eyes briefly.  “Is there any way to get in touch with her?”

“I’ll give you her cell phone number, but I don’t think that’ll do you much good. She told me they’re probably going to be out of range most of the time.  She’s going to call me Sunday night, though.  Would you like me to ask her to call you?”

“No, no thank you,” he murmured, mouth tightening.  “I’ll be—unavailable.”  The SGC had provided him with a phone, but he figured reception would be pretty poor once he left the solar system.

An hour later he was sitting in a diner near the airport, reading the paper placemat in front of him as he waited for his fish and chips.  It was festooned with articles on various subjects, including a biography of Kierkegaard that was obviously written by someone whose command of English syntax was exceeded by their literary ambitions.

_Even though he felt, but was not sure, he was in love.  Who can know for sure, he reasoned.  He believed his mind ought to be as consentual as his heart.  A mighty disturbance popped up in his psyche._

Rodney dug out his cell phone and dialed the number Marg had given him, not really surprised when he heard the pleasant pre-recorded _The customer is outside the calling radius_ message.  

The waitress delivered his fish and chips, which were surprisingly good.  Once he’d inhaled the first piece, he dialed John’s number.  John picked up after the sixth ring.

“Sheppard.”

“McKay.”

There was a pause, then, “What’s up, Rodney?” in his terse, take-no-prisoners voice.

Rodney wanted to say, _Sounds like you’re having as good a day as I am_, but since they didn’t do that kind of thing with one another, he said instead, “Are you back at Cheyenne yet?”

“No, but I will be in—” another pause “—three hours.”

Rodney fiddled with the edge of his placemat.  “I’ll be there in four.  When I get in, you want to go for pizza?”

A thousand miles away, he heard John Sheppard smirk.  “Only if I get to pick the toppings.”

“Deal,” Rodney said, and hung up.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Rodney got back to the SGC not long before midnight local time, and the first thing they did after commandeering a staff car was drive through the humid midsummer night to a Taco Bell and order way too many enchiladas and fries coated in imitation melted cheese, mystery meat and sour cream.  Next was Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets—Rodney was shocked when John asked for honey, he would’ve bet he was a barbecue guy—and finally they picked a local place for pizza and ordered the works on top of the works, including anchovies.  To Rodney, the back seat smelled like a fast food place in heaven.

John, on the other hand, seemed kind of pissy about the whole thing, like he’d been duped into chauffeuring Rodney around Colorado Springs on a quest for grease.  So when Rodney finally instructed him to turn in to the motel parking lot, he didn’t immediately perk up.  It was only when he suggested Sheppard stay in the car while he check in that those dark eyebrows shot up in understanding.

“Don’t worry,” Rodney said archly.  “You paid for dinner, I’ll put out.”  John might have smiled, but it was hard to tell with only the faint glow of the dashboard lighting his face.

The room was clean, if not particularly large, and there was a noisy but functioning air conditioner set to full blast.  Rodney split the bags right open on the bed and began sampling a fry here and a McNugget there while John started on the pizza and watched him with half-lidded eyes.  

“What?” he asked in mid-chew, though John had to know that look never failed to turn him on, even when—or maybe _especially _when—there was seemingly inevitable, gory death looming on the horizon.

“You don’t have to be dainty with me,” John drawled.  “I’ve seen you at your slobby best.”

“Thank you very much for your permission.  I’m savouring, do you mind?”

Sheppard rolled his eyes.  “Rodney, you savour a good barbecued steak or a glass of thirty-year old scotch.  You do not savour Fries Supreme.”

“Says you,” Rodney shot back, licking cheese goop off his fingers.  “Do you know I used to _dream _about this crap the last couple of weeks before the siege?”

“Does Heightmeyer know about this?”

Rodney snorted.  “I don’t need a shrink to tell me how neurotic I am.  Obviously, the food was symbolic of comfort, safety, home.  Which makes you wonder why we’re putting all this effort into saving the world, really; if this—”  he waved his Big Mac, sending a couple of lettuce shards flying “—is representative of Earth in all its glory, then we’re already in trouble, even without the Wraith.”

“Maybe you should have been dreaming about the Louvre or the Parthenon,” Sheppard said, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin.  “Something representing the nobility of the human spirit.”

Rodney grunted and sucked down about half of his super-sized Coke.  “Given the choice between the Mona Lisa and enchiladas, I’ll take enchiladas every time.”

“You,” John said, pointing an accusing pizza slice, “are a Philistine.”

Rodney kept eating after he’d already had enough, because, well, he didn’t quite know what to do with John Sheppard in a motel room on the outskirts of Colorado Springs where the chances were extremely good that both of them would survive the night.  Luckily, though, John seemed to sense the mighty disturbance in Rodney’s psyche, because after a few more minutes of watching Rodney graze, he stood up, cleared away enough of the empty food wrappers to make room for himself on the bed, kneeled on the mattress, took Rodney’s face in his hands and kissed him.

When he drew back almost immediately, Rodney’s heart lurched.  “What?”

John’s tongue darted out to lick at Rodney’s upper lip.  “You taste like special sauce,” John murmured before he dove right back into Rodney’s mouth.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Rodney woke when the morning sun found the gap in the curtains that would allow a sharp ray of sunlight to pierce his left eye.  Squinting, he peered at the bedside clock and groaned when he saw it was well past eight.

John lay on his side facing Rodney, arms tucked in close to his body.  Shamelessly, Rodney took a moment to study his face, which in sleep was uncharacteristically slack-jawed and vulnerable.  

Okay, maybe it was several moments.

Finally, his conscience got the better of him and he poked John in the shoulder.  John came instantly awake, eyes popping open, face acquiring that military tautness.

“We should be getting back,” Rodney said, his voice rusty.

John rubbed at his eyes like a petulant toddler.  “I don’t have to report until tomorrow morning.”

Rodney frowned.  Not having the same input into the military staffing that Rodney and Carson did in selecting the scientific and medical teams, John had left over a week ago on some mysterious trip.  When curiosity had forced Rodney to ask Elizabeth, she said he’d mentioned visiting Ford’s family.  But surely that didn’t require an entire week.

It occurred to him then that he knew next to nothing about John, and that John knew next to nothing about him.  He wasn’t entirely sure how to rectify that situation.  Somehow it seemed too simple to just open his mouth and let the words come out.  

So instead he opened his mouth and said, “Tomorrow, hm?  By an amazing coincidence, my schedule’s free until tomorrow too.”

John pretended to give it some thought.  “Want to get more pizza?”

Rodney slid his hand under the sheet, smiling when the silky hair covering the warm skin tickled his palm.  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.  “I won’t need more pizza for at least another hour.”

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
The following afternoon he was on his way to Elizabeth’s temporary office at the SGC for a meeting when an obviously angry voice stopped him in his tracks.

“—actions constitute a breach of security.”

“There was no breach of security, sir,” he heard John reply.  “I was exceedingly careful to avoid specifics.”

Rodney was brought up short not by the anger in the other voice, but by the anger in John’s.  It wasn’t detectible by anyone who didn’t know how to look for it—outwardly, he sounded perfectly calm, and perfectly serious.  That was the trick, because most of the time John took care to never appear serious about anything.  Quietly, Rodney edged toward the door so that he could eavesdrop more effectively.

“No?  Then what did you tell them?” the other voice demanded.  “That their sons and daughters and wives and husbands were lost in some classified battle in some classified war, and their remains are now in some classified place where their loved ones will never be permitted to visit?  Do you think it helped them to know that?”

There was a few moments’ pause.  “Colonel Everett charged me with informing the families—”

“He expected you to _write a letter_, Sheppard, not visit the next of kin of every soldier we lost in the siege of Atlantis.”

Rodney’s stomach did a backflip as the meaning of those words sank in.  He tried to remember the numbers—forty some-odd casualties, and how many of those dead or taken by the Wraith?  Two dozen, at least, and the vast majority of those had been military.

He tried to imagine seeing all of those people, meeting them face to face, opening himself to that maelstrom of emotions over and over again—and failed.  Hell, it had almost been beyond his imagination to do that with his own _sister_; the thought of speaking that intimately with dozens of strangers was enough to make him feel ill.

“I decided to exercise my initiative, sir,” Sheppard said, and now Rodney could hear that familiar sarcastic drawl.  “I’ve been told it’s the mark of a true leader—”

“Stow it, _Colonel_,” the other man snapped.  “You’ve forgotten the Air Force doesn’t have a sense of humour.”  Then Rodney heard a sigh.  “Listen, son, I don’t want to bust your balls.  But you’ve got a hell of a job for your first command, and you’re going to burn yourself out within six months if you keep up this level of involvement.”

When Sheppard spoke again, his voice was so low that Rodney had to strain to hear it.  “Don’t have much choice, General.  Atlantis seems to have that effect on people.”

“Dismissed, Colonel,” the general said wearily.  

Rodney turned and fled, finding an empty conference room to duck into just in time.  

As he listened to the familiar cadence of John’s boots echoing down the hallway, he thought about the John Sheppard he’d known yesterday, the one whose naked body had been spread out under Rodney’s splayed fingers like a feast.  

_Who can know for sure, he reasoned._

Rodney walked out of the room and headed for his appointment, taking care to close the door on his way out.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The Kierkegaard biography excerpt belongs to R.D. Barton and Fact and Fancy Placemats of Fredericton, New Brunswick. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> First published July 2005.


End file.
